


Make it All Better

by LEMONADANG



Category: We Bare Bears (TV)
Genre: Fankids - Freeform, M/M, bonding!!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LEMONADANG/pseuds/LEMONADANG
Summary: Panda and Charlie's kids all have a nightmare.
Relationships: Charlie/Panda (We Bare Bears)
Kudos: 16





	1. Oakley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this probably wont make much sense unless you know who these babs are!!!! they belong to my friend fae! you can read up on them on the webearbros blog!!

The first week Oakley and Noelle had been a part of their family, everyone in the house had been smacked with a level of responsibility previously unheard of. Panda and Charlie bore the brunt of this responsibility as the new parents of these two, with Grizz, Ice, and Leena helping out whenever they could. 

Charlie had been the first to notice Oakley had been having some trouble sleeping. The cub would twitch in his sleep, rubbing his little mittened paws over his eyes (mittens, of course, to prevent him from scratching his eyes in a situation exactly like this) during his midday naptime, a time that was originally intended to be for Oakley to be calm and quiet and peaceful-- none of which appeared to be happening. 

As if Charlie wasn’t already worried enough, the moment Oakley began whimpering in his sleep Charlie was already removing him from the crib.

“We don’t need none of that, now…” Charlie soothed, taking the cub into his arms. Surprisingly, he stayed asleep. Charlie sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed he shared with Panda. Oakley squirms, on a mission to find a more comfortable position to lay in. The whimpering doesn’t continue, though, and Charlie’s just relieved he was able to stop it before it got worse. 

The cub is a warm, comforting weight in Charlie’s arms. It’s been close to seven years since he’s been able to experience this, and everything comes flooding back at once. It’s a good feeling, a really really good feeling; he wants to live in this moment forever. 

For now, though, papa’s here, and he’ll fight off any monsters Oakley or any of his kids encounters.


	2. Noelle

If he hadn’t already been half-awake he probably wouldn’t have been able to pick up on it at all; this was one of the few times he could say he was grateful he had been having trouble falling asleep. 

“Noelle?” Panda’s eyes flutter open, and he sits up to get a better view of the cub. She’s visibly upset, tearfulness lingering in her eyes, even with the darkness of the room serving to limit some of her features. Panda clicks on the lamp on his end table, careful not to wake his soundly sleeping husband on his left. “Sweetie, what’s up?”

Instead of replying straight away, Noelle raises her fuzzy arms towards Panda. He takes the hint and lifts her into his bed, and right away she’s clinging to his arm. Panda doesn’t need to scoot to make room for her-- She’s compact enough to fit next to him perfectly. He’s a bit worried about her falling off, though, but she’s stuck to him more than enough to compensate for that. 

His heart aches for her. She’s the most timid of her siblings, moreso than her baby brother by far. Panda takes half a moment to make sure aforementioned baby brother is still sleeping, and he squints in his contact-less state at the crib in the corner of his bedroom. He detects movement not outside normal baby sleeping movement(?), and is able to bring his attention back to Noelle. Anyways, Noelle rubs at her eyes with the back of her paw, and sniffles wetly. 

“Did you have a scary dream?” Panda asks. He takes a moment to shift his position, and lifts his arm so it can be around Noelle, securely holding her in place. She protested briefly by holding onto his arm tighter when he tried to move it, but then wasted no time in clinging to his side instead. 

_scary,_ was the only word Noelle managed to get out between tiny snivels. Panda sighs, pulling the cub closer. He can feel her trembling softly, and he uses a paw to wipe the tears from her eyes. 

“It was just a dream, pumpkin,” Panda whispers. “You’re awake now. It’s not scary anymore; daddy’s here.”

Noelle doesn’t say anything in response, simply sniffling deeply. Panda takes that as a sign that she’s beginning to calm down, and he gently rubs her back with his paw.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?” He smooches the top of Noelle’s head. “The sun’s gonna come up tomorrow, and we’re gonna have a fun day tomorrow, okay?” He feels her nod against his side, and he smiles out of habit. She rubs the last of her tears away with her paws, and looks up at Panda with sweet caramel eyes. A jolt of something shoots through Panda, and his heart almost melts. He would die for this little girl. 

“Do you wanna sleep in bed with me tonight?” Panda asks, and Noelle indicates that she does want that by nodding her head. Panda smiles gently. “Okay. Goodnight, sweetheart. I love you.”

Panda remembered going through the same thing as her when he was her age, except he had an older brother to protect him and a younger brother that seemed to be more competent than both of them put together. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to throw a helpless little baby into that mix, with no older sibling, while also trying to take care of yourself. He decides Noelle is the strongest person he knows, six or otherwise. 

Nightmares aside, Panda thinks she really needs this time to cry, to be held and comforted. Panda can’t imagine she ever had much of anyone to provide that for her like he could until now.

Panda doesn’t think about sleep until he’s certain Noelle has fallen asleep, snoring softly as she nestled into Panda’s side.


	3. Leena

Leena has always been resilient. Adding siblings to her life didn’t change that-- she had a lot of love in her and it was good to have two more outlets for that. 

She’s always been resilient, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still a little kid. 

_knock knock knock._

Ah. Thankfully Panda hadn’t fallen asleep yet, because he would have missed that. He slips on his glasses and gets out of bed. 

He already knows who’s at the door before he’s even opened it. She’s the only one in the house that knows how to knock, after all. 

His oldest daughter, Leena, was waiting for him at the door when he opened it, looking up at him with tired, expectant eyes. She didn’t need to say much of anything for Panda to know something was up.

He crouches to her height and runs a paw down the back of her head. Noticing the beginnings of tears at the corners of her eyes, he almost wanted to cry himself seeing his daughter in this state. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Leena nods. “Uh-huh,” she says, her voice quavering gently. Panda can tell she’s holding back those tears. 

Panda stands back up, taking Leena up with him in his arms. She sniffles, and he makes it his mission to get this girl back to a hundred percent and back to bed, no matter how long it takes. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Panda asks, and Leena rubs away the first tear that falls from her eyes. She tells him she’s not ready to talk about it yet, and he tells her it’s perfectly fine. 

Panda decides the couch is a more appropriate place for these kind of father-daughter “bonding” moments-- he guessed they’d be there a while, and it’d be better if they weren’t in the same room as two other sleeping people. Charlie wouldn’t complain if he was woken up, but Oakley definitely would, and you know the rest. 

Anyways, Panda flicks on a lamp in the corner of the room to allow in a semi-decent amount of light without completely flooding the room with it and eliminating all chances either of them would have had to fall asleep that night. He sits her on the couch, and as soon as they’re down she’s huddling close to his side. 

“You can cry if you need to, honey,” Panda says, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “Don’t hold it in.”

“Gotta be brave, though,” She replies, confidence bleeding through the shakiness of her voice. “How can I protect Noelle and Oakley if I’m a crybaby?”

The words pierce through Panda, and he wants so badly to scoop this girl up and tell her she doesn’t need to be brave. 

“It’s good to cry sometimes,” Panda says. “People are gonna tell you to smile through the pain, but I don’t believe in that. If you ignore it, and try to force happiness, you aren’t fixing the problem, you’re just letting it fester. If you… I don’t know, scrape your knee, you can’t ignore it. You need to first acknowledge it, and clean it, and bandage it, right? It’s the same with bad feelings. Right now, you’re scared, and you’re afraid you won’t be able to protect Noelle and Oakley if you’re scared, but you’ll have an even harder time protecting them if you aren’t allowing yourself the space to feel stuff like this. What happens if you put too much air in a balloon?”

“It pops.”

“Right,” Panda says. “You have me, papa, and your uncles looking out for you and your siblings. Don’t put all that on your shoulders. I want you to have fun being a kid.”

Leena smiles, and occupies herself with Panda’s paw, absentmindedly fidgeting with it. 

Panda lets his TED-talk finish on that note and he turns the conversation back towards what started it in the first place. “You know what helps me when I have a bad dream?”

“What?”

Panda turns on the TV, making sure the volume is low enough so only they would be able to hear it. “I usually just watch the most weird thing I can find on the public access channels. Like,” Panda stops on one channel. “What even is this? A talk show with a clown as the host and also the guest?”

Leena laughs out loud, and covers her mouth to avoid waking the household. Panda laughs too, half in genuine amusement, and half relief he could get Leena smiling again. 

Leena ended up falling back asleep leaning up against Panda, and Panda couldn’t say he didn’t also fall asleep on the couch that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on a real show i saw on a public access channel once!


End file.
